Presidential Rickroll: White House Tricks Followers With Sneaky Tweet

Did you know The White House has an official Twitter? It’s true. The President and company have more than two million followers and regularly link to pressing news stories and infographs. They’ve also started directly answering questions and comments from random internet users in a segment they call #WHChat. Ordinarily, the responses are a little dry and formulaic, but earlier today, one of them shocked the hell out of me and about a hundred thousand other curious souls.

Addressing a Tweet from WiggSD about the day’s correspondence briefing being less entertaining than yesterday’s effort, the Presidential Twitter shot back with this gem:

@wiggsd Sorry to hear that. Fiscal policy is important, but can be dry sometimes. Here's something more fun: tinyurl.com/y8ufsnp #WHChat

That’s right. The goddamn White House Rickrolled us. Who sees that coming? Whenever I get a shady link from one of my friends, I always assume it’s a Rickroll or a link to some type of heinous porn, but my guard was completely down on this occasion, even with the “here’s something more fun” lead-in. In retrospect, I wish they would have preempted the clip with a faux-serious message like “Debt Crisis Solved!”, but beggars can’t be choosers. This whole thing still makes me like President Obama even more, even if he had nothing to do with it.

For those of you who don’t know, Rickrolling is an online phenomenon where savvy and underhanded users trick their friends with hyperlinks directing them to Rick Astley performing his 1987 classic “Never Gonna Give You Up”. In 2008, the singer famously Rickrolled the entire Macy’s Day Parade, popping up and belting out his classic much to the gleeful surprise of onlookers.

On a related note: how annoying is it that Vevo has inserted a commercial prior to the video? The Rick Roll is so much less jarring when the victim isn’t immediately taken to Astley’s pale-faced and horrible dancing. Oh well. Here’s a look at the video in question…